‫بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم‬

‫‪LECTURE_5‬‬
 Poynting Vector and Electromagnetic Energy
Flow in A Plane Wave
The rate of energy flow per unit area in a plane wave
is referred to as a Poynting vector.
A Poynting vector is defined as the curl of electric
field intensity and magnetic field intensity vectors, or
mathematically :

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 The magnitude of Poynting vector is power flow per unit
area and it points in the direction of wave propagation
vector.
The intensity of EM wave is given by

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 Poynting Theorem
Starting with Maxwell’s equations

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From vector analysis

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 The power is given by integrating eq. (29)

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This is integral form of Poynting Vector and power

flow in EM fields

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 The Poynting theorem states that:
“ The power coming out of the closed volume is equivalent
to the total decrease in EM energy per unit volume.”
i.E power loss from the volume is contributed by:
 Rate of decrease in magnetic energy in the volume
 Rate of decrease in electric energy in the volume
 Ohmic power loss in the volume.

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 Notice that :

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 Assuming a plane wave traveling the in +ve z-direction, in
free space, then
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The instantaneous value of Pynting vector is given as:

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 The average value of the Poynting vector

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 Notice that:

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 EX

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 solution

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 Wave Polarization
The wave polarization refers to the orientation of the
electric field vector E.
This field direction may be fixed or changing with
time.
The electric field vector may trace a circular path or
generally an elliptical path.
Accordingly , wave polarization may be classified to:
 Linear polarization
 Circular polarization
 Elliptical polarization

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 In case of circular polarization, we may have
a field tracing a circle in a clockwise sense .
 Such circular polarization is called RHCP.
Similarly if the field traces the circle in an
anticlockwise sense, the polarization is said
to be LHCP.
The same is true for elliptical polarization.
i.e we may have RHEP or LHEP according to
the sense the field traces the ellipse.
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 Superposition of Two Linearly Polarized waves
Consider two linearly
polarized waves: x-linearly and
y-linearly polarized waves.
The two waves are directed in
the +ve z-direction
Ex and Ey may be varying with
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 The total electric field can be written as:

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 Equation (36) may be written as:

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 From Equation (36) we can derive the following cases:
(1) Linearly Polarized Wave

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Insert time dependence in Eq.(38), we get:

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 The amplitude of the electric field vector is given by:

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Eq.(38) represents a straight line always directed along a

line, and makes an angle Θ with the x-axis given by:

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 Polarized wave in x-direction

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 (2) Circularly Polarized Wave

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44

In time domain Eq. (44) may be written as:

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 Polarization rotation
Referring to Eq. (45), we notice:

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 Dr. A.A.Babiker--- Electromagnetics and
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 Fig. 2: RHCP wave

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 (3) Elliptically Polarized Wave

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 Some particular cases

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 Dr. A.A.Babiker--- Electromagnetics and
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 Fig. 3: LHEP

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